65(1), 2000, pp .

3-26
Rural Sociology
Copyright © 2000 by the Rural Sociological Society

Empowering Communities Through Public Work, Science,

and Local Food Systems : Revisiting Democracy and
Globalization*

William B. Lacy
Office of the Vice Provost, University Outreach and International Programs,
University of California-Davis

ABSTRACT Communities are the foundation of our society and of our

overall well-being . Unfortunately they are experiencing rapid transforma-
tions that may significantly erode their capacity to remain viable and sus-
tainable both domestically and internationally . Issues of empowering com-
munities are examined in regard to social justice, challenges to democracy,
and globalization of the economy and other sectors of society. It is argued
that the ways in which we view and structure work, generate and dissemi-
nate knowledge through science and technology, and produce, distribute,
and consume food are essential factors affecting our self-identity and the
empowerment of our communities . How we shape decisions and actions
around work, science and technology, and food, as well as other key fac-
tors affecting our communities, is crucial to achieving a just and sustain-
able agenda for the future . Finally, it is proposed that all citizens be en-
gaged in a procedural process called discourse ethics, which is guided by
the principles of justice, recognition, respect, and accountability.

Communities are the basic building blocks and foundation of our

society, making critical contributions to the quality of our families,
interpersonal relationships, education, health, environment, food
systems, economy, and overall well-being. As Ken Wilkinson (1991)
observed, community and place-based relationships are still an im-
portant feature of existence for most people. John Cobb (1996 :194)
further noted that "without communities, however imperfect, so-
ciety can only decay."
In this paper I focus on issues of empowering communities in
the context of democracy and globalization . Without trying to ad-
dress the full array of processes and structures that empower com-
munities and enable them to strive for sustainability, I discuss three
key areas: public work, science, and food systems . The way we view
and structure work, the way we generate and disseminate knowl-
edge, and the way we produce, distribute, and consume food are es-
sential factors affecting the viability and empowerment of our com-

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the
Rural Sociological Society, held in Chicago in August 1999 . I would like to thank
Larry Busch, Al Luloff, and the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on
the paper. I also wish to thank the following people for their helpful suggestions and
insights, Chuck Geisler, Paul Eberts, Jim Christenson, Dave Brown, Tom Lyson and
Laura Lacy. Address communications to William B . Lacy, Office of the Provost, One
Shields Avenue, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 .


4 Rural Sociology, Vol . 65, No . 1, March 2000

munities. Clearly this set could be expanded to include other im-

portant areas such as families, health systems, and education, but
those topics are beyond the scope of this paper.
I am indebted to my colleagues in the Rural Sociological Society
because this essay builds on several previous presidential addresses,
particularly those of Lawrence Busch (1999 ; "Beyond Politics : Re-
thinking the Future of Democracy"), Jan Flora (1998 ; "Social Capi-
tal and Communities of Place"), Janet Bokemeier (1997 ; "Rediscov-
ering Families and Households : Restructuring Rural Society and
Rural Sociology "), and Ken Wilkinson (1986 ; "In Search of the
Community in the Changing Countryside" ) . With this previous
work as background, I examine public work, science, and food sys-
tems in the broader context of social justice, democracy, and glob-
alization.
An earlier version of this paper was presented in Chicago at the
annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society. For many rea-
sons, it was appropriate to discuss issues of community and democ-
racy in the "Windy City ." Historically Chicago has been a center for
community scholarship and empowerment, urban and industrial
democracy, and social philosophy addressing democracy and edu-
cation. Most people are familiar with the diverse body of work of
the Chicago school of sociology (e .g., E.W. Burgess, G.H. Mead,
R.E. Park, W.I. Thomas, and L . Wirth) . Its theoretically informed,
empirical social science research, conducted during the first third
of the twentieth century, focused on topics such as the local urban
community, Negro families, the ghetto, and juvenile delinquency
(Bulmer 1984 ; Christenson 1979 ; Tomasi 1998) . This sociological
scholarship was complemented by the pragmatist philosophy of
John Dewey and his colleagues at the University of Chicago ; that
philosophy found expression in educational work, particularly
Dewey's laboratory schools, and in issues of democracy.
Equally important to understanding communities was Jane
Adams's work in Chicago more than a century ago . She established
Hull House to address the needs of the poor and disenfranchised
and to help urban communities develop their capacity for democ-
racy and public work (Stebner 1997).
We have also followed the political activities of Saul Minsky and
his colleagues . They sought to empower communities through
"people's organizations" in industrial slums and in the immigrant
stockyard communities that had been the setting for Upton Sin-
clair's muckraking masterpiece, The Jungle. Minsky taught people in
Chicago and throughout the country how to organize to better
their lives and their working conditions . He demonstrated that in
the hands of an urban populist committed to action with local citi-
zens, a sociology degree from the University of Chicago can pro-
duce significant community change . (Minsky, however, was reluc-


Presidential Address 5

tant to recognize the contribution of his sociological education ; see

Horwitt 1989.)
Community Field and Social Capital
Many scholars and practitioners have discussed and debated the
definition and core components of a community. For this paper I
use Philip Selznick's (1996) appropriately flexible and inclusive def-
inition of community:
A group is a community to the extent that it encompasses a
broad range of activities and interests, and to the extent
that participation implicates whole persons rather than seg-
mental interests or activities . The emergence of community
involves a complex and balanced mix of interacting vari-
ables, the most important of which are : a shared history
and culture, mutuality, plurality, participation, and integra-
tion. (p. 195)
By extension, an empowered community is a group of people in
a locality capable of initiating a process of social or community ac-
tion to change their economic, social, cultural, and/or environ-
mental situation.
Viable communities depend on interaction . As Wilkinson (1989)
noted, components essential to community-a locality or shared
territory, a local society, collective action, and mutual identity and
common life-all depend on social interaction for their existence.
Social interaction is "a pervasive feature of community life that un-
derlies and gives substance to the ecological, cultural, organiza-
tional, and social psychological aspects " (Wilkinson 1991 :2) . Com-
munity interaction, however, is not simply the summation of various
social interactions but rather a process whereby many different in-
teractions and associations that constitute a common life are inte-
grated as a whole . Wilkinson (1989:339) observes, "Community in-
teraction, unlike other interactions, relates to shared territory,
contributes to the wholeness of local social life, and seeks to im-
prove the well-being of the local society as a whole ." As a result,
strategies that strengthen local forms of social organization and
community interaction can provide the basis for empowering com-
munities.
From the interactional perspective, the community is assumed to
be composed of several more or less distinct social fields through
which actors pursue or express particular interests . Community de-
pends on communicative bonds among the various interactional
realms; thereby it produces a community field that transcends the
particularistic positions and perspectives of the component social
fields. The community field is special : actors pursue not a single in-
terest but the general community interest. To simply do work in the


6 Rural Sociology, Vol . 65, No. 1, March 2000

community, however, is not sufficient . Action and interaction must

be taken on behalf of the community as a whole . Moreover, actions
in the community field "reinforce the commonality that permeates
the differentiated special interest fields in a community" (Wilkin-
son 1991 :90) . As Bridger and Luloff (1998 :118) state, "Without a vi-
brant community field to provide communicative linkages that gen-
erate social capital and highlight common ground between
opposing groups, it is doubtful that any community could achieve
the level of trust required to grapple meaningfully with the difficult
issues surrounding sustainability" and community development.
Jan and Cornelia Flora (Flora 1998 ; Flora and Flora 1996) have
added to our understanding of community dynamics and have
complemented Wilkinson's interactional perspective and commu-
nity field concept by analyzing the basic social structures within a
community for creating and building community-level social capi-
tal. These structures include (1) symbolic diversity, (2) widespread
resource mobilization, and (3) diversity of networks . The Floras
have also introduced the concept of entrepreneurial social infra-
structure, which includes the notions of equality, inclusion, and
agency as an alternative to social capital . These structures and
processes greatly increase communities' capacity to take collective
action and realize their collective goals.
Global Economy
Unfortunately, many communities are undergoing rapid transfor-
mations that may significantly erode their capacity to ensure com-
munity-well being and sustainability, both domestically and interna-
tionally. As Bridger and Luloff (1998) recently observed, local
communities and their economies have become increasingly en-
meshed in a global economic system characterized by extreme mo-
bility of capital and by the use of places as little more than produc-
tion sites . Furthermore, this globalization has decreased the
importance of community as a social unit, particularly in the devel-
oped world : people are losing both their sense of place and the so-
cial relationships that emerge from the common experiences of liv-
ing and working together.
Phil McMichael (1996) noted that at the broadest level, there has
been a globalization of the economy coupled with the decline of
national economies ; this has been occurring rapidly since the debt
crisis of the 1980s. Globalization is a transnational process of eco-
nomic integration, which includes the proliferation of international
commodity chains, transnational firm expansion, and corporate
mergers . With the decline of the welfarist nations in the First World
and the demise of socialist regimes of central planning in the Sec-
ond World, debt management has become the new organizing
principle. Consequently a global preference for liquid rather than


Presidential Address 7

fixed capital has emerged; as a result, the "territorial" principle has

been subordinated to the capitalist principle . During the 1980s, fi-
nanciers consolidated power and reshaped modern political and
economic institutions including work, science, and the agro-food
system . The major financial institutions have gained this new power
at the expense of the sovereignty of state monetary authorities : all
states are constrained to manage their finances according to global
criteria. The goal of this process is globally managed economic
growth with a view toward sustaining both the integrity of the
global financial system and the conditions favoring transnational
corporate capitalism . Global change, however, is neither ubiquitous
nor uniform; it affects people differently with varying conse-
quences in different settings.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and New York Times columnist
Thomas Friedman (1999) captures the tensions and conflict be-
tween globalization and community in his recent book, The Lexus
and the Olive Tree. His central theme is that globalization, as repre-
sented by the robot-produced luxury car, the Lexus, is the central
organizing principle of the post-Cold War era, even though many
individuals and nations resist by holding onto what has traditionally
mattered to them : community, identity, and place, as represented
by the olive tree . Friedman defines globalization, viewed largely as
American hegemony, as the world integration of finance markets,
nation-states, and technologies within free-market capitalism on a
scale never before experienced.
Friedman characterizes the defining technology of the Cold War
period as nuclear weapons ; its defining perspective as division ; its
symbol as a wall ; its measurement as weight, particularly the throw-
weight of missiles; its law as Einstein's mass-energy equation ; and its
defining economists as Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes, who
each in his own way wanted to tame capitalism . In contrast, the
defining technologies of globalization are computerization, minia-
turization, digitization, satellite communications, fiber optics, and
the Internet ; its defining perspective is integration and homoge-
nization ; its symbol is the World Wide Web ; its defining measure-
ment is speed-speed of commerce, travel, communication, and in-
novation ; its defining law is Moore's Law, which states that the
computing power of silicon chips will double every 18 to 24
months ; and its defining economist is Joseph Schumpeter, who
prefers to unleash capitalism . In the Cold War era, the most fre-
quently asked question was "How big is your missile?" In the glob-
alization era, the most frequently asked question is "How fast is
your modem?"
Globalization is driven by what Friedman calls the "electronic
herd" : the faceless buyers and sellers of stocks, bonds, and curren-
cies, and the multinational corporations investing wherever and


8 Rural Sociology, Vol. 65, No. 1, March 2000

whenever the best opportunity presents itself . This is a pitiless sys-

tem, rewarding winners richly and punishing losers harshly, but it
is contradictory as well . Globalization enriches the consumer in us,
but Friedman observes that it can also shrink the citizen in us and
diminish the space for individual cultural and political expression.
Globalization threatens to destroy both cultural heterogeneity and
environmental diversity. According to Friedman, the human drive
for enrichment or commodity accumulation (the Lexus) conflicts
with the human need for identity and community (the olive tree).
The success of globalization, Friedman contends, depends on how
well these goals can be balanced.
Although Friedman 's work is an artful, complex, and well-written
popular analysis of globalization, it is overoptimistic and naive, par-
ticularly with regard to the ability of the market forces of globaliza-
tion to correct their own excesses.
Instead, it is empowered communities that are most likely to stop
this erosion of community, to temper the impacts of globalization,
and to effectively sustain the quality of life, social justice, economic
growth, and environmental integrity for both present and future
generations . As Gertler (1998) has observed, however, community
is not assured : many have had to deal with an absence of commu-
nity or (worse) a community that is unsympathetic to the fates of
individuals. A concerted and sustained effort by many will be
needed to ensure viable and empowered communities.
Issues of Social Justice
Underlying all strategies for empowering communities are explicit
or implicit assumptions about social justice and what determines
right or wrong . Before proceeding with an analysis or assessment of
particular strategies for empowering communities, it is important
to examine the principles for determining justice . Ethicist and so-
cial philosopher Paul Thompson (1997) observes that the main
themes for assessing justice draw on several approaches : a utilitar-
ian or a consequentialist approach ; a rights-based approach, which
includes libertarian rights and egalitarian rights ; and a third, more
traditional way of conceptualizing justice, namely virtue theory.
In a utilitarian approach to social justice, social change (in this
instance, in communities) is evaluated in terms of whether it tends
to produce an attractive ratio of benefits to costs for all affected
parties . From this perspective, advocates usually recommend the
greatest good for the greatest number of affected parties . The prin-
ciple of utility, however, needs a great deal of specification before
it can be used as a rule in decisions. One problem with this model
is identifying and factoring in externalities : that is, the conse-
quences, either benefits or costs, borne by those who are not deci-
sion makers . A complete analysis of external costs may be difficult


Presidential Address 9

to achieve . Even so, those who apply a utilitarian analysis of social

justice tend to be favorably disposed towards technological change.
Unfortunately, history has taught us that any strategy for empower-
ing communities seldom delivers all the benefits that are promised
and that the costs are often higher than expected.
The second perspective draws on rights-based theories . Accord-
ing to these theories, social change and community development
are viewed as acceptable when they take place under circumstances
where rights are respected, enforced, and stable . Change is re-
garded as questionable, and possibly unacceptable, when such con-
ditions are not met. This framework includes libertarian theories,
which assume that the most desirable state is one of perfect and
complete liberty. Libertarian rights protect people's life and per-
sonal security, their liberties of conscience, movement, and speech,
and the free use of their property as long as others are not harmed.
This libertarian protection of property rights provides the strongest
argument for a market economy.
In contrast, other rights theorists stress egalitarian rights, which
require more than abstinence from harming others . When com-
munity empowerment is viewed from the egalitarian rights per-
spective, the scope of the rights argument is expanded consider-
ably. Thereby the likelihood of conflicting rights claims is
increased, particularly in regard to resources inadequate to meet
all the claims . These theorists are concerned with reconciling con-
flicts among positive rights . Most of their approaches do so by plac-
ing positive rights in a hierarchy so that claims to basic needs in a
community, such as minimal health care, food, and income oppor-
tunities, must be met for everyone . Once these basic rights have
been guaranteed, it may be possible to expand the scope of the
rights claims to include literacy, higher education, or even recre-
ational opportunities.
According to virtue theory, the third way of conceptualizing jus-
tice, society is viewed as just insofar as it provides a structure of in-
terpersonal relationships, incentives, and reinforcements to virtue.
Philosopher Alisdair Maclntryre (1988 :191) defines virtue as "an ac-
quired human quality, the possession and exercise of which tends
to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices
and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any
such goods ." He continues by defining practice as "any coherent
and complex form of socially established cooperative human activ-
ity through which goods internal to that form of activity are real-
ized . . . with the result that human powers to achieve excellence,
and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are sys-
tematically extended" (p . 187) . Architecture, for example, is a prac-
tice, while bricklaying is not ; farming is a practice, but planting
turnips is not .


10 Rural Sociology, Vol. 65, No. 1, March 2000

Virtue theory presents at least three ways in which change and

community development or empowerment may be problematic.
First, virtue may be undermined insofar as the change is linked to a
social rationalization or to the increasing commodification or trans-
formation of some good or practice, not generally subject to com-
mercial exchange, into a commodity that is routinely bought and
sold . Second is the extent to which change and community devel-
opment make the performance of tasks routine and unreflective.
This process may contribute to the loss of human practices . Here
the danger is that technology and social change may turn practices
that define and give meaning to human life into automated or rote
actions . Finally, insofar as traditional agrarian societies and family
farms represent repositories of human practice and its virtues, com-
munity development and change in communities, which interfere
with the continuation of family farming, are viewed as particularly
antithetical to producing virtuous citizens.
Given these three theories of justice as they pertain to communi-
ties, one might ask "Which one is right?" One common response,
given by novices, is "It ' s all relative ." This answer, however, leaves us
at an impasse . According to Thompson (1997), three possibilities
present themselves as reasonable ways to proceed . One is to under-
take an analysis of relativism itself: Can it be defended? A second is
to undertake a more sophisticated, philosophical argument in-
tended to show that one of the theories discussed is right and the
others wrong. The third alternative is to propose a procedural or
pragmatic theory.
The first two possibilities are less attractive than the third, partic-
ularly because they would lead this discussion into increasingly ab-
stract political, moral, and metaphysical considerations . Further-
more, I would argue that a procedural or pragmatic approach
provides the best opportunity for interpreting justice for communi-
ties. Procedural theory holds that social transactions are made just
or unjust less by their substance or outcome than by whether they
were the result of fair procedures . A "fair" procedure would be ac-
cepted not only as capable of producing a decision on the ethical
acceptability of community change or development, but also as un-
biased towards any particular view of social justice, such as the util-
itarian, libertarian, egalitarian, or virtue perspective.
As noted above, the success of the procedural approach rests on
the nature and conditions of the procedures. Kettner (1993) de-
scribes a procedural approach called "discourse ethics," which is de-
signed to increase the probability of producing a decision relatively
unbiased toward any particular notion of social justice . His ap-
proach involves five morally relevant constraints on discourse : (1)
Discourse must be open to all competent speakers whose interests
will be affected ; (2) people must be free to construe the issues and


Presidential Address 11

their own interests in whatever terms they deem appropriate ; (3)

participants must be capable and free of constraints to take the role
of others ; (4) the process must be free of external coercion ; and
(5) statements and reasoning offered must be transparent, or
aimed solely at establishing the best reasons for accepting a pre-
scription or conclusion.
These ideal conditions, however, are seldom if ever realized in
practice . Actual community debates and strategies are unlikely to
reach an ethically defensible consensus . The most one can hope for
is that the issues will be illuminated for the individuals able to ap-
proximate ideal discourse conditions . The conscious building of so-
cial capital within the community should increase the likelihood
that Kettner's five conditions will be met . In participatory commu-
nity decision making, it is also likely that participants will agree on
language for articulating norms and values that closely resemble
the three philosophies of utility, rights, and virtue . Yet they must
work through these philosophies and express their own positions,
arguments, or objections in a common language. Only in this way
can the values achieved be considered their own.
Thompson (1997) concluded his discussion of these various the-
ories of justice by noting that the key moral implication of the pro-
cedural approach is that policy makers and other experts, like all
participants in community development and sustainability, have a
moral responsibility to ensure that Kettner's five conditions are
met-if not in public forums, then at least under some controlled
circumstances in which ethical issues can be pursued seriously.
Democracy
With discourse ethics assumed as the preferred principle for social
justice, democracy may be viewed as a key mechanism for ensuring
both this discourse and broad citizen participation . Although many
have tried to define democracy, Robert Nisbet (1992 :16) observes
that "Lincoln's famous definition of democracy as government of,
by, and for the people cannot be improved upon whether as a
moral ideal or as a historical description ." As Lawrence Busch
(1999) stated in his presidential address, we need to restore moral
responsibility to individuals while maintaining liberties based on
enlightenment . Furthermore, Busch observed that "if individuals
are social, then moral responsibility develops through interaction,
through participation in the affairs of daily life" (1999 :11) . He ar-
gued that we need to expand political democracy by inventing new
means for democratic participation, and by building networks of
democracy. Although structures such as science, the state, and the
market can become ends in themselves, democracy is likely to re-
main what Shapiro (1996) calls "a subordinate foundational good,"
or a good necessary for the achievement of other goods . Demo-


12 Rural Sociology, Vol. 65, No . 1, March 2000

cratic participation must extend beyond the political sphere to

workplaces, science and technology, families, health care, and food
systems . In short, democracy must be extended to all institutions.
As a result, moral responsibility will be placed where it belongs, in
the hands of everyone.
Although representative democracy endures in the United States
and is far superior to authoritarian regimes, a sense of dissatisfac-
tion, disappointment, disaffection, and even crisis pervades the
workings of the American political system . Before fully endorsing
the extension of political democracy to all institutions, let us briefly
review some of the issues in the political arena.
At the broadest level, numerous scholars have noted the fracture
between community and government, and the concurrent crisis of
representation. Increasingly, the nation-state is unable to represent
its citizens because its capacity to control and regulate economic
and noneconomic environments has been reduced greatly (Bo-
nanno 1998, Friedland 1994).
At the individual behavioral level, there has been a decline in vol-
untary associations, in which citizens affiliate freely with one an-
other, collectively solve community problems, and build networks of
social trust . Moreover, voter turnout is low ; institutions suffer from
gridlock ; federal, state, and municipal authorities are perceived as
lacking responsiveness ; and the public is increasingly pessimistic
about government . In 1964, for example, only 29 percent of all
Americans believed that government was in the hands of a few big
interests ; by 1992 that figure had reached 80 percent. At the same
time, 65 percent said that "quite a few " of the people running the
government were crooked (Castaneda 1997) . Indeed, in a 1995 New
York Times/CBS News poll, 59 percent said that there was not a sin-
gle elected official they admired . Fifty-eight percent of those polled
also believed that people like themselves "had little to say about
what the government did" (Boyte and Kari 1996 :5) . This resent-
ment of politics and government is an indication of general dis-
content, anger, and fear about all institutions and about the future.
Harvard social scientist Robert Putnam (1995) observed that in
1960, two-thirds of the public expressed trust of other citizens ; by
the 1990s, two-thirds distrusted other people . Such civic disaffec-
tion is likely to exacerbate other dangerous trends such as sharp so-
cial and cultural divisions, growing economic discrepancies, and a
wide pattern of group demands for rights and resources with little
corresponding commitment to responsibilities and contributions.
Harry Boyte and Nancy Kari (1996) view many of these problems
of democracy as symptoms, not as causes, and (at least in part) as a
product of a narrow focus on liberal redistributive justice . They
state that in partial response to the liberal focus, with its emphasis
on rights, private opinion, and instrumental politics, a deliberative


Presidential Address 13

form of democracy advanced by Jurgen Habermas (1979) has

emerged . This view of citizenship stresses a democracy aimed at a
shared understanding of values, responsibilities as well as rights,
and the concept of a public world of value in itself.
Habermas's theory has spurred a number of public deliberations
designed to recreate a public realm for bridging the bitter divisions
that separate Americans . This is particularly important because lib-
eral politics, which is largely concerned with protecting democratic
rights (especially those of minorities and the relatively powerless),
has resulted in an explosion of demands, strategies, and mobiliza-
tions targeted at acquiring rights and resources . As political scien-
tist Nancy Rosenblum (1998 :1.73) points out, individual rights mat-
ter less than a culture that encourages respect and equality among
its members in daily interaction . Civic-spiritedness must be nur-
tured if democracy is to work and communities are to thrive.
Deliberative politics has emerged as an alternative to the incivil-
ity, rancor, and meanness that often characterize public debates to-
day. Deliberative theorists stress processes that contribute to citi-
zens' understanding and appreciation of public discussion, their
civility, and their commitment to the common good . In John
Dewey's (1916) terms, a deliberative vision rests upon a notion of
democracy as a shared way of life.
Public Work
According to Boyte and Kari (1996), however, neither the liberal,
rights-based view of democracy nor a communitarian, deliberative
view of citizenship and politics is sufficient to create civic-spirited-
ness . Indeed, some have argued that those efforts to reconstruct
public-mindedness in a balkanized society of proliferating interest
groups and constituencies may be futile . Instead Boyte and Kari ar-
gue that the primary issue is the loss of meaning of work, which
goes beyond Marx's notion of alienated labor. Viewing citizens' ac-
tivity in terms of volunteerism, deliberative democracy, or creation
of social capital is inadequate because they do not begin to convey
the richness nor to identify the importance of what citizens do.
When citizenship is equated with volunteerism, for example, it loses
its seriousness and power, and becomes what one does after hours
or on the side . Boyte advocates bringing back a third version of cit-
izenship aimed at developing citizens ' capacities for public work.
According to Boyte and his colleagues, public work-work in which
things of value and importance are made in cooperation with oth-
ers-is the taproot of American democracy . Work is not beside the
point; it is at the center of citizenship and a potential source of
democratic renewal.
This notion of public life as common work is deeply rooted in
our nation's history. At the turn of the century, for instance, the


14 Rural Sociology, Vol. 65, No. 1, March 2000

Country Life Commission called for renewal of democracy in rural

life. Commission leaders argued that agriculture and farming were
more than a commercial enterprise : the commission viewed them
as an example of democratic public work . Our founders regarded
education as the foundation for democracy. This education was to
be aimed at practical citizenship and was to focus on the develop-
ment of people's capacities for working together through civic
problem solving.
According to Boyte, citizenship, understood as public work by
groups with widely differing interests and values, offers different re-
sources for democratizing power and empowering communities . By
public work, Boyte means visible work by a mix of people, which
creates things of public value . Public work is work by ordinary peo-
ple that builds and sustains our basic public goods and resources,
otherwise known as common wealth . Thinking of work in this way
renews the idea of the citizen as a producer, not simply as a voter, a
community volunteer, or a consumer. Boyte and his colleagues
place work at the center of community and democracy . Through
public work or work of significance, people form connections with
each other, broaden their horizons, and become creators of their
communities and guardians of the common wealth . Work, whether
paid or unpaid, means that one has made or created something,
and therefore is connected to it.
A key to developing the civic capacity of individuals, institutions,
and communities is the reconfiguring of jobs as public work . When
work is not understood in its broadest terms and tied to larger pub-
lic purposes, challenges, and possibilities, fundamental questions
that are vital to democracy are ignored . In our diverse culture,
Boyte concludes, we can rebuild a sense of commonwealth only
through the ongoing, multidimensional work of people with differ-
ent interests and perspectives that address common problems (e .g.,
citizenship school and schools for public life) . Optimistically he
states that a rich array of civic work in many diverse settings is evi-
dent across the country, although its possibilities and significance
have not been fully understood or realized.
Wendell Berry, writer, poet, and gentleman farmer, also has writ-
ten compellingly about the centrality of work to community . In his
view, work is not merely a bone thrown to the otherwise unem-
ployed, but rather is necessary, good, satisfying, and dignifying to
the people who do it, as well as genuinely useful and pleasing to
the people for whom it is done. Indeed, he writes that "a commu-
nity's health is largely determined by the way it makes its living"
(1993 :81).
Liberty Hyde Bailey ( [1908] 1996), who was a professor of horti-
culture and dean of the College of Agriculture at Cornell Univer-
sity at the turn of the century, wrote eloquently that land-grant uni-


Presidential Address 15

versities should have as their primary mission the preparation of

people for work and the development of their capacities to work to-
gether on common tasks of importance . The democracy that Bailey
promoted did not deny the value of our science, technology, and
education ; it liberated professional expertise by placing it at the
service of communities and citizens in true partnership . He wrote,
"Every movement that tends to weaken local responsibility and ini-
tiative is a distinct menace to the people . Whenever the people are
taught to look beyond their own institutions to federal institutions
alone, they lose opportunity and power to help themselves" (Bailey
1996 :43) . Boyte and Kari echoed this sentiment when they wrote,
"[O]ur reliance on others to solve problems is directly related to
the rise of scientific knowledge and credentialed expertise"
(1996:16) . In Bailey's words, "People need to view themselves as
productive, with ideas and resources to solve problems, build things
and do things . Every effort must be made to develop native re-
sources not only of material things but of people" (1996 :72).
Bailey and the Country Life Commission regarded state and na-
tional cooperative extension as essential to developing rural re-
sources and capacities by teaching cooperative local action . Coop-
erative extension has retained this strong emphasis on education
for rural citizenship and has stressed development of communities
for problem solving (Ayres, Garkovich, and Howell 1998) . As Boyte
observes, extension educators are an example of professionals who
view their own specialties as embedded in public work . Bailey con-
cluded, "Our present greatest need is the development of what may
be called the community sense, the idea of a community, as a
whole, working together towards one work" (1996 :51).
Democratized Science
Science and technology are an equally critical influence on the sus-
tainability and empowerment of community and local democracy.
In recent decades, public controversies have engulfed many tech-
nologies that affect communities, such as electric power plants, haz-
ardous waste disposal methods, and fluoridation of public water
supplies. In The Whale and the Reactor: A Search For Limits in an Age of
High Technology, Langdon Winner (1986 :5) observed that "con-
sciously or unconsciously, deliberately or inadvertently, societies
choose structures for science and technologies that influence how
people are going to work, communicate, travel, consume, and live
their lives over time ." Today biotechnology, information technol-
ogy, robotics, and bioinformatics are rapidly reshaping our daily
lives and our communities, often in unexpected ways . As a conse-
quence, these scientific and technological innovations are similar to
legislative acts or major policy decisions that establish a framework
for public order which may endure over many generations . Indeed,


16 Rural Sociology, Vol. 65, No. 1, March 2000

technology is legislation . In a democracy, citizens generally would

not tolerate sweeping legislative changes without due process . Sci-
entists and their sponsors, however, are able to cause wrenching so-
cial change through science and new technologies, which is totally
isolated from public influence and (according to Winner) usurps
fundamental democratic rights.
Underlying this privileged position is the belief that scientific
knowledge is rational, and capable of revealing nature "as it is ." De-
cisions therefore are merely the discovery and application of the
laws of nature, unaffected by the vagaries of politics and the social
world. Opposition to citizens' involvement in science and technol-
ogy is often based on the claim that lay persons are incapable of
grasping the technical nuances and methodological complexity of
science (Levitt and Gross 1994).
Recently these views have been challenged by philosophers
(Thompson 1997), sociologists (Busch et al . 1991 ; Kleinman 1998;
Latour 1987 ; Middendorf and Busch 1997), and activists (Sclove
1995) . These scholars have noted the inherently problematical,
contingent, and negotiated character of scientific and technical re-
search results . The products of science are contextually specific
constructs that can be understood only with detailed knowledge of
the social conditions of their production . These include decisions
about the choice of problem, what resources to allocate to the
problem, how to conduct the research, what to consider as results,
and how to interpret the findings . These decisions are all made by
human actors who interpret nature and function in social organi-
zations. As Rouse (1987 :38) argues, "Science is not primarily a way
of representing and observing the world, but rather a way (or ways)
of manipulating and intervening in it ."
Given this constructionist view of science and technology, how
can the generation of knowledge be democratized? What are the
appropriate roles for lay citizens in the realm of science and tech-
nology? Kleinman (1998), who drew on several cases illustrating cit-
izens' involvement in science, concluded that lay people's inability
to grasp the subtle content, the difficult concepts, and the method-
ological complexity of science is not a valid basis for a priori rejec-
tion of efforts to democratize science . Numerous mechanisms to in-
volve citizens in scientific and technological decision making have
emerged in recent years . These mechanisms can be distinguished
across several dimensions: the nature of lay involvement, such as
the authority for final decisions and the extent to which involve-
ment includes activities commonly understood to be the exclusive
realm of experts ; the timing of the citizens' entry into the process;
the nature of experts' involvement ; the organizational dynamic of
scientists' and citizens' interaction, including who defines the terms
of involvement; the extent to which participants view "technical"


Presidential Address 17

and "nontechnical" considerations as discrete ; and the extent to

which they view nontechnical matters as appropriate for considera-
tion . At the least contentious end of the continuum, scientists ac-
knowledge a social dimension to a problem ; all participants agree
that this is the appropriate realm of nonscientists, and reserve tech-
nical questions for the experts . Near the other end of the spec-
trum, lay citizens challenge the rules of the scientific method, are
involved in the production and evaluation of knowledge, and often
assert that appropriate research methods must be shaped by non-
technical considerations.
The forms taken for democratizing science and science policy in-
clude public hearings and forums, advisory and oversight panels
and councils, public surveys, consensus conferences, and science
shops . As one might imagine, these mechanisms vary widely in
their effectiveness for involving citizens in the process . Public hear-
ings, for example, may give citizens an opportunity to learn more
about certain science and technology agendas, to voice their opin-
ions, to participate in environmental and social impact analyses,
and ultimately to influence the direction of policy. Public hearings,
however, also may be used to contain participation and restrict ac-
cess while giving the appearance of community involvement.
A positive example is the public forum conducted by the Na-
tional Agricultural Biotechnology Council, which brings together
diverse participants and stakeholders in agricultural biotechnology
to discuss and clarify concerns surrounding these new technolo-
gies . Although these annual forums raise many of the key issues,
they have no specific role in deciding research agendas . Another
mechanism is the science advisory committee, such as the Recom-
binant DNA Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of
Health, which is charged with developing federal guidelines for this
type of research and coordinating their implementation . Although
committee membership continues to be broadened, citizens have
exerted little real influence, while scientists have defined the
agenda . European consensus conferences are often better models
for dealing fairly with technical and social matters . In theory, con-
sensus panels make lay people central to deliberations and permit
nonexperts to control the agenda (Lacy forthcoming).
All of these processes and procedures, however, are plagued by
two fundamental problems . First, the results generally are not bind-
ing, and require the decision makers' approval for implementation.
In Denmark, for example, to partially overcome this limitation,
consensus conferences were established in association with the par-
liament, so that outcomes and recommendations could be consid-
ered by decision makers as quickly as possible.
The second problem concerns the key parties' ability to manipu-
late the results. All of these processes risk being coopted or over-


18 Rural Sociology, Vol . 65, No. 1, March 2000

whelmed by powerful interests and ultimately serving only to justify

the decisions and plans of these interests . Thus it is important to
keep as transparent as possible the organizers ' goals and motives,
the credibility of spokespersons who both raise and discuss the ar-
ray of issues surrounding the science, the funding sources for re-
search, the process by which content, scope, and audience for sci-
ence and technology are made, and how this information and the
outcomes of the conferences will be pursued (Sclove 1995).
Perhaps one of the most effective efforts to move away from sci-
entists' self-governance and to empower citizens and communities
in science has been the practice called "popular epidemiology"
(Brown and Mikkelsen 1990 :125-126) . In this process, lay persons
gather scientific data and other information, make decisions about
priorities, engage in hypothesis formation, research design, and
data analysis, and direct and marshal experts' knowledge and re-
sources to understand the epidemiology of disease . The case of
Woburn, Massachusetts, in which citizens researched the relation-
ship between local water and disease (e .g., leukemia), is often cited
as an example of this process in action.
Popular epidemiology differs from traditional epidemiology in its
emphasis on social structural factors as part of the causative chain
of the disease . Given the stakes for their communities, advocates of
popular epidemiology would rather claim an association between
variables when there is none than to mistakenly overlook an associ-
ation where one exists (i .e ., something that could harm the com-
munity's health) . Popular epidemiologists prefer false positives (or
type I errors) to false negatives ; professional epidemiologists prefer
type II errors to avoid concluding that something is real when it is
not. (Such an outcome is potentially embarrassing and harmful to
a scientist's reputation .) Popular epidemiology clearly empowers
communities because it embraces the community's knowledge and
values as well as its active participation.
Obviously there are a number of barriers to democratizing sci-
ence. As Kleinman (1998) and Sclove (1995) observe, these barri-
ers are embedded in the organization of U .S . society. The real ob-
stacles to democratizing science are rooted in widespread social
and economic inequalities and in an unexamined commitment to
expert authority. Optimal citizen participation in science and tech-
nology depends on adequate time and other resources with which
to acquire the broadest possible knowledge, to gain the opportu-
nity to examine deeply held assumptions, and to develop mecha-
nisms that weaken the effects of socially significant forms of in-
equality. Science and technology will only become more important
in shaping our communities' future . As Sclove (1995:239) stated,
science and technology are not the only factors impairing democ-
racy, but they are as important as any other and are the least un-


Presidential Address 19

derstood . Creative strategies for overcoming the obstacles to de-

mocratizing science are just now emerging ; they should be pursued
aggressively to ensure that the agendas for science and technology
are compatible with community sustainability.
Local Food Systems
Among critical components affecting communities and their long-
term sustainability, the food system is the last to be addressed here.
Food and our food system, characterized by intense commodifica-
tion and by an accelerating distancing of producer and consumer
from each other and from the earth, represent the general failure
of late capitalism and postmodernism . Our food comes increasingly
from all points on the globe . In any supermarket in Lexington,
Kentucky, State College, Pennsylvania, Ithaca, New York, or Davis,
California, one can find grapes from Chile, apples from New
Zealand, oranges from Brazil, processed meats and cheeses from
Europe, and even "organic" fruits and vegetables from Central
America . Food in the United States travels an average of 1,300
miles and changes hands a half-dozen times before it is consumed.
As a consequence, people are separated not only from their food,
but also from knowledge about how and by whom their food is pro-
duced, processed, and transported . If these processes tend to de-
stroy land, water, air, and human communities, as they often do, the
consumers are unaware of the implications of their participation in
this global food system and are unable to act responsibly and effec-
tively for change . Moreover, as Paul Thompson points out, "nearly
gone is the spirit of raising food and eating it as an act of commu-
nion with the larger whole" (1995 :175) . Harriet Friedmann
(1993 :221) describes the principal dynamic in this world food econ-
omy as a move to "distance and durability," the suppression of par-
ticularities of time and place in both agriculture and diets . Ulti-
mately this distancing disempowers.
Welsh and MacRae (1998), in describing the situation in Canada,
identify four significant dimensions of the global food system which
they find problematic : (1) corporate control of the food chain,
which reduces risk by controlling markets for both supplies and
sales, often through vertical and horizontal integration (corporate
concentration in Canada is greater than in most other industrial
nations) ; (2) providing consumers with limited information on the
products they buy, and focusing primarily on price, quality (defined
by the product's safety and cosmetic appearance), and conve-
nience ; (3) manipulation of the supermarket environment to max-
imize purchases and to encourage impulse buying (70 percent of
all purchases are unplanned) ; and (4) emphasizing processed and
convenience foods over less highly processed foods, which creates
a built-in incentive to ensure deskilling . As Goodman, Sorj, and


20 Rural Sociology, Vol. 65, No. 1, March 2000

Wilkinson (1987) observe, crops and animals are treated increas-

ingly as chemical components for the manufacture of a wide array
of reconstituted foods, whose composition and nutritional value are
not clear to the consumer.
This global food system tends to reduce the entire world of life
to commodities or merchandisable objects . Use of transportation
technologies developed under assumptions of cheap oil conditions,
the mobility of capital, and the development of "controlled envi-
ronment" production technologies permit the expansion of this sys-
tem . Because production is globally dispersed, this system appears
to be decentralized (with multinational corporations seeking to re-
duce costs through cheap labor, minimal government regulations,
and mechanization) . In actuality, however, the system as a whole is
increasingly centralized : particular agricultural products are grown
in a limited number of areas on a decreasing number of farms, of-
ten under marketing and production contracts, and are processed
and retailed by a small number of politically and economically pow-
erful multinational corporations (Welsh 1997) (Friedman 1994).
Heffernan et al . (1996) and Lyson, Geisler, and Schlough (1999)
observe that six multinational corporations account for more than
46 percent of the $200-plus billion annual retail purchases of food
in the United States . In some sectors, such as poultry, eggs, and
produce, companies through vertical integration control every-
thing from the seed to the table . The impacts are troubling in the
developed world, but perhaps the most serious consequences may
occur in the developing countries, where whole regions and na-
tions may be effectively excluded from both production and con-
sumption of food . This globalization of the food system is broadly
disempowering because it homogenizes our food, our landscapes,
and our communities.
Numerous scholars and practitioners are trying to redress the im-
balances in the global food system through the development of lo-
cally based alternatives founded on respect for the integrity of par-
ticular sociogeographic places (Berry 1993, 1996 ; Clancy 1997;
Friedmann 1993 ; Gussow 1991 ; Kloppenburg, Hendrickson, and
Stevenson 1996 ; Welsh and MacRae 1998) . Embedded in, and cen-
tral to, these alternative local or regionally based food systems is a
democratic and empowered community. The underlying assump-
tions are "self-reliant, locally or regionally based food systems com-
prised of diversified farms using sustainable practices to supply
fresher, more nutritious foodstuffs to small-scale processors and
consumers to whom producers are linked by the bonds of commu-
nity as well as economy" (Kloppenburg et al . 1996 :34).
In an insightful article, Kloppenburg et al . (1996) propose a par-
ticularly relevant conceptual and methodological unit of analysis:
the "foodshed, " a creative analogue to the watershed . They argue


Presidential Address 21

that recognition of one's residence within a foodshed can confer a

sense of connection and responsibility to a particular locality ; it can
enable people to produce and eat within and in harmony with the
rhythms and patterns of the places where they live.
According to these authors, the foodshed must be embedded in
a moral economy that conditions market forces and relocates food
production primarily within human needs rather than in the econ-
omists' effective demand . Moral economy, first described by E .P.
Thompson (1966) in the 1960s, is a system of exchange justified in
relation to social or moral sanctions, as opposed to the operation
of free markets . By adopting this perspective, one can view the cen-
trality of food to human life as a powerful basis for nonmarket or
extramarket relationships between persons, social groups, and in-
stitutions . In this model, production and consumption of food
could become the basis for reinvigorating familial, community, and
civic culture. Indeed, the moral economy of a foodshed is viewed as
shaped and expressed principally through communities.
Kloppenburg and his colleagues (1996) also introduced the con-
cept of a commensal community . This idea originated in a novel by
Ursula Le Guin (1969), in which the commensal hearth is the basic
unit of society. Commensal refers both to people eating together
and to the ecological relationship of organisms that obtain food
from each other without damaging each other . Commitment to a
moral economy requires that one work to make commensal com-
munities as inclusive as possible . This entails moving beyond the
farm-centered rural emphasis of the sustainable agriculture move-
ment to include issues of race, class, gender, and community within
and outside rural areas. According to Kloppenburg et al . (1996:37),
"The commensal community should confront and address the
need not just for equitable access to food, but also for broader par-
ticipation in decision-making by marginalized or disempowered
groups." Moreover, these authors observe that the standards of a
commensal community require respect and affection for the land
and for other species : "It is through food that humanity's most in-
timate and essential connections to the earth and to other crea-
tures are expressed and consummated" (p . 37) . They point out,
however, that food is only one specific (though critical) case ; one
could focus as well on the global monetary system, the global
health system, the global political system, and the global industrial
system. Sustainability requires a change in global society as a whole.
Kloppenburg and colleagues conclude that we need the recovery
and reconstitution of community in general, not simply in relation
to food.
Within the existing food system, projects and components al-
ready are emerging which could form the foundation for viable lo-
cal food systems or commensal communities . These include farm-


22 Rural Sociology, Vol . 65, No. 1, March 2000

ers' markets, neighborhood farm stands, community-supported

agriculture, sustainable agriculture organizations, community gar-
dens, community food security coalitions, community development
corporations, rural development institutes and centers, producer
and consumer cooperatives, and food policy councils . The Toronto
Food Policy Council (TFPC) is an example of a particularly innov-
ative and successful council . Created by the Toronto City Council
in 1990 as a vehicle for "food citizenship" and community improve-
ment, the TFPC is guided by the premise that community food se-
curity must focus on the concept of food citizenship or food de-
mocracy, which requires moving beyond the notions of food as a
commodity and people as consumers.
Welsh and MacRae (1998), in a paper analyzing food citizenship
in Toronto, argue that food, like no other commodity, allows for a
political awakening because it touches our lives in so many ways.
Food citizenship, they posit, draws on and helps to nurture au-
thentic relationships and active citizenship rather than the trivial-
ized notion of citizenship, in which involvement is reduced to iso-
lated acts of voting. Food citizenship suggests both belonging and
participating at all levels of relationships . The TFPC has immediate
access to both the political machinery and the preventive health
care system of the city; its representatives come from the farm and
rural sector, the antipoverty movement, community organizations,
the conventional business sector, education, labor, multicultural or-
ganizations, the Toronto Board of Health, and city politics . The
TFPC has financed more than 150 projects over two years ; it has
created numerous regional and thematic networks designed to pro-
vide low-income people with access to an affordable, nourishing
diet and to rebuild food skills and citizenship . According to Lyson
et al . (1999), a growing number of practitioners and academics
across the United States are "recognizing that creative new forms of
community development, built around the regeneration of local
food systems, may eventually generate sufficient economic and po-
litical power to mute the more socially and environmentally de-
structive manifestations of the global market place" (p . 210).
Various conceptual analyses and practical efforts to build and en-
hance local food systems are rediscovering community on this con-
tinent and elsewhere . Nutritionist and food system advocate Kate
Clancy (1997), in her presidential address to the Agriculture, Food
and Human Values Society, stated, "The recovery of community as
the core of local food systems is the biggest challenge of our work"
(p. 113) . Similarly, David Orr (1992), in Ecological Literacy : Education
and the Transition to a Postmodern World, writes that we need to strive
for "a rejuvenation of civic culture and the rise of an ecologically
literate and ecologically competent citizenry who understand


Presidential Address 23

global issues, but who also know how to live well in their places" (p.
1) . Wendell Berry (1990) goes further, arguing that a new ethic for
eaters should address the fact that the condition of the passive con-
sumer of food is not a democratic condition . According to Berry
(1990:127), one reason to eat responsibly is to live free . Finally, Al-
ice Waters, owner of the Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Cali-
fornia and author of the essay "The Ethics of Eating," observes
"that how you eat and how you choose your food is an act that com-
bines the political-your place in the world of other people-with
the most intensely personal-the way you use your mind and
senses, together, for the gratification of your soul" (1995 :5).

Conclusion
In this paper, in the broader context of our concepts of social jus-
tice, challenges to democracy, and the globalization of the econ-
omy and other sectors of our society, I analyzed three key compo-
nents for strengthening and empowering communities : public
work, science and technology, and food systems . Although these
factors are not all-encompassing, they are critical . The way we view
and structure work in terms of its public purpose, the way we gen-
erate and disseminate knowledge through science and technology,
and the way we produce, distribute, and consume food are essen-
tial to our sense of self and community, and thereby are essential in
shaping the viability and sustainability of our communities. Efforts
to strengthen active participation and engagement in each of these
areas will greatly enhance the creation of sustainable communities
and will temper the negative effects of globalization and the other
hegemonic agendas . These efforts must not be pursued merely in
the community, but also on behalf of the community as a whole.
Moreover, the guiding principles for decisions and directions
should be part of a discourse ethics that helps to achieve fair and
just procedures . Finally, although it has been said that we must
think globally and act locally, in the coming millennium it will be
necessary to think and act at all levels-locally, regionally, nation-
ally, and internationally-to ensure long-term sustainability.
Ideal communities never have existed, and probably never will.
Still, without communities, particularly sustainable communities,
society can only atrophy. The restoration of local communities on
the human scale is essential to renewal at all levels . Moreover, seri-
ous citizenship requires public action guided by the principles of
justice, recognition, respect, and accountability . What each of us
chooses to do may be critical to shaping our communities and our
democracy in the future . Mahatma Gandhi said it well when he
stated, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."


24 Rural Sociology, Vol. 65, No . 1, March 2000

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